


Calling All Cars (there's an officer down)

by mosylu



Series: I'm Coming After You [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Buried Alive, F/M, Killer Frost - Freeform, Rogue Cisco, Ruh-Roh, vibe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5821594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You, ah, you think he’s still alive?”</p><p>“The Rogues have never killed anyone that we know of.”</p><p>The place where Dante’s pinky used to be, before Snart had snipped it off with a pair of shears, sent ghost pain down his hand. “That you know of,” he said.</p><p>Cisco's missing. This would be bad all by itself, but what makes it worse is that he turned on the Rogues, and they're missing too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calling All Cars (there's an officer down)

Pain dragged Cisco back to consciousness like a set of fish hooks. One in his knee, which felt twice its normal size. One in his swollen lip, which split afresh when he opened his mouth to groan. One in his nose. Several in his ribs.

Cautiously, he ran his tongue around his teeth, feeling for loose ones. He tasted blood. The inside of his mouth was mushy and tattered, from his teeth cutting up the flesh when fists slammed into his face.

The Rogues had worked him over, for the cardinal sin of rolling on them when he’d never had any reason to give them his loyalty in the first place.

But it sounded like he was alone now. Locked up somewhere? Would they come back to finish the job?

Whatever the answer, probably best to start applying his brain to how to escape. He opened his eyes.

Then he shut them and opened them again.

Still no difference.

Dark, darker, darkest.

For a crazed moment, Cisco wondered if he’d gone blind. Like, one of the blows to the head had rattled his brain in his skull and done some soap-opera shit.

He swallowed. Okay, well, if that was the case, then he wasn’t going to fix it by lying around here.

He sat up, grunting in pain as his ribs protested. The grunt echoed, and from the way the echo bounced, he could tell he was in a smallish room, enclosed. He’d never used his sonar ability much. It was never called for. Well, here it was, being called for.

He clicked his tongue, and the vibrations bounced back. Click, click.

Maaaaan, he should’ve practiced more.

* * *

Dante made Lieutenant Joe West take him down into the pipeline and run through every one of the holding cells before he could be satisfied that Cisco wasn’t there.

“Then where is he?” Dante growled, following him back up the hallway.

West said over his shoulder, “We’re working on that.”

The minute he walked into the bullpen, about three officers jumped up to make reports. Somehow, West was able sift through the hubbub and send them all off in different directions with a few words.

Dante caught enough of what they were saying to state, “You’re looking for the Rogues, is what you’re doing.” Without a lot of success, it sounded like. All the reports had been of dead ends.

West said, “The Rogues are the ones who took him. Find one, find the other. And one of my best is throwing everything she’s got at tracing where your brother went.”

Dante looked at the desk across the room. A woman scowled at her computer screen, intently studying what looked like feeds of traffic cameras. Caitlin Snow, also known as Killer Frost. The woman who’d rescued him from captivity, arrested Leonard Snart at the bank today, and had worked with his brother to do both.

That’s what people told him, anyway.

He still didn’t know why, because Cisco had been blackmailed into working with the Rogues in order to preserve Dante’s life. Why would a cop believe him? Why would a cop work with him? What did they want from him?

Questions that maybe he’d find the answers to.

But first - “It’s been hours since anyone saw Cisco.” Which was deeply unsettling, since the Rogues had escaped police custody, also several hours before.

“Son, you need to let us do our job. We’ve got our best on it.” He studied Dante, narrow-eyed. “We’ve sent two of our officers to escort your parents home and act as security detail.”

“Good,” Dante said. One less thing to worry about.

“But you’re not going go home, are you?”

“Not while he’s still missing.”

“Stay here a moment.” He went to talk to Snow. Dante saw her jerk with surprise, open her mouth, and then close it again at whatever look her lieutenant gave her. West gestured him over, and Dante went.

“You can stay,” West told him. “But stick with Snow.”

“And do what?” Dante asked, torn between relief that he’d be allowed to stay and resentment at being assigned a baby-sitter.

“Stay out of my way, mostly,” she said. “I’ll let you know if I need help. Got that?”

“Crystal clear,” he said.

West shook his head. “Keep me updated,” he told Snow, and left.

She started working again, as if he was a plant in the chair next to her desk. He watched over her shoulder. It looked like security tapes from a bus. His brother boarded the bus in flickery black-and-white.

Dante stared at his brother’s face. It had been a year and a half since he’d seen him. Did he look different? Thinner, taller. Or was that the tape quality?

Definitely his hair was longer. Jesus. He looked like a girl. Dante wanted to be able to tell him that so badly that his teeth itched.

“Hey,” he said.

“I told you,” she said, without looking way from the screen. “If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.”

“I know, I’m asking for yours. You, ah, you think he’s still alive?”

Her pen went still. She stared fixedly at the screen, her mouth tense. “The Rogues have never killed anyone that we know of.”

The place where Dante’s pinky used to be, before Snart had snipped it off with a pair of shears, sent ghost pain down his hand. “That you know of,” he said.

* * *

Okay.

So.

The space was about ten by ten by ten, his sonar told him, and still as a tomb -

Oh, god, bad word. _Bad word._ He should not have thought that.

But, anyway, no air coming in or out.

He walked the perimeter to make sure, skimming his fingers over the wall. Unpainted cinderblocks, it felt like, the surface rough under his fingertips. In one corner, the texture changed subtly. Cinderblocks to bricks, smaller. He paused and pressed at the bricks, testing them. He ran his fingers between them. The mortar was firm and dry and cool, like quick-dry cement.

He hunched down into a ball for a moment, thinking, _No, there’s still the ceiling._ Not like he had a stool or anything in here but he did have his booms.

He took a deep, careful breath and pressed his hand to the spot on his ribs that twinged the loudest. Bruised, for sure. Cracked, maybe. Broken, he didn’t think so.

He hoped not, anyway.

He bounced on his toes, flexed his knees, and threw a boom at the ceiling. It slammed back and he crumpled to the ground, all the breath knocked out of his lungs

He shifted one shoulder, then the other. Sore. He was going to bruise, and all that on top of his previous injuries.

And he definitely had a broken rib now. Maybe two of them.

He had bigger problems than his injuries, though, because the backlash of the boom had told him everything he still needed to know about his surroundings. Because beyond the walls, there was more solid ground, in all directions.

Motherfucking cask of motherfucking Amantillado.

They’d buried him alive.

* * *

After a few hours stuck in the chair next to Snow’s desk, being steadfastly ignored, Dante had to admit that TV was a lie and cop work was simultaneously the most boring and the most frustrating thing he’d ever seen.

Leads petered out, voicemails went unanswered, alibis checked out, and they were no closer to finding his brother. It was like Cisco had walked away from the Great Western Bank six hours before and just dissolved.

Every so often there was a flurry of activity, a screaming of phones and a sudden jumping up of every cop in the room. Sometimes it was only a moment, sometimes it was ten minutes or so while Dante quivered on the edge of his seat, wondering who they’d found, one of the Rogues or Cisco or  -

_\- a body -_

No.

It was always a false alarm, anyway.

He found himself nodding off. He’d had a long few days, all upheaval. He jerked himself out of a light doze with a snort when the phone on her desk rang right in his ear.

He blinked at it. Snow wasn’t in her chair.

The phone rang again, then a third time.

From across the room, Snow yelled, “Would somebody _get that,_ ” and turned back to whatever she was watching on the skinny guy’s desk.

With nothing else to do, Dante grabbed it. “Uh, Meta Division,” he said. “Officer Snow’s desk.”

“I need Dr. Snow.”

“Is this about Cisco Ramon?”

“Who?”

Dante scowled. “She’s not available.”

“Can you give her a message?”

“Sure.” In, like, two days. Whatever this weedy-sounding guy wanted, it could wait until his brother was found.

“Can you tell her that her sonic boom guy is being an asshole again?”

“Her - sorry, what?”

“Her sonic boom guy. He’s screwing with our instruments.”

“Who are you again?”

“Fred Alton. From the Geophysics Lab at CCU. Look, just tell her, this guy’s been at it for over an hour. There’s a pattern to it so we know it’s this meta that she’s always fighting. You know, Vibe?”

“Who?”

“You live under a rock, man? Vibe.”

“I’ve been out of it. Who’s Vibe?”

* * *

“Snart asked for me?” Caitlin said. “Why?”

One of the roadblocks had worked, but the Rogues were holed up, with a hostage, on the road to Starling City. They were refusing to back down, release the hostage, or surrender peacefully until she arrived.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Joe asked her.

“They clearly have something they think they can use against me.” She thought of the heat gun, which shorted out her powers. Had they worked that out? She pressed her hand to her stomach. “But why go to the trouble?”

“You’re the first person to successfully arrest Snart since he got that gun and started calling himself that silly name,” Joe reminded her. “You’re not his favorite person. He takes you down, he shows everybody on either side of the law what happens to someone who opposes him.”

Caitlin studied the screen, scowling. Her phone rang shrilly in the background. She ignored it. This was the most important conversation in this room.

“You’re not going to go, are you?” Barry said.

“I’m not an idiot,” she said as her phone rang again. “I know the stink of a trap.” She chewed her lip. “But what if this is the only way to find out where Cisco is?”

“He could be with them.”

Caitlin glared at them both. “We’ve been over this.” Her phone shrilled again, and she yelled, “Would somebody _get that,_ ” and it stopped. She rubbed her temples, saw the mist spilling off her palms, and curled her fingers into fists.

Barry reached into his desk, pulled out a box of chemical handwarmers, and held it out. She took one, cracked it, and pressed it between her palms until the mist stopped swirling.

Joe waited until she set it down, frosted over like a cookie, before saying, “Yes, we have been over this, and Ramon did good in that bank, I’ll give him that. I think what Barry’s saying is, could be they’ve got him against his will.”

Barry nodded hard, looking a little like a bobble-head doll. “Snart will use the people that Cisco cares about against him. You said that. His parents are under guard. His brother’s here with us. You know who that leaves.”

She let out a strangled laugh. “How much can Cisco care for me? All I’ve done is beat him up, arrest him, lie to him, and break my promises to him.”

“What promises did you break?” Joe said gently, in the kind of voice he used with Iris.

“That he would be fine. That he could trust me. That he’d be safe.”

“In all the time we’ve been fighting him, he’s never struck me as stupid,” Barry said. “He knew better than anyone what he was risking, turning on the Rogues. Trust me, he knew this might happen, just like you did.” He gave her a little smile. “And something tells me Snart’s using Cisco to get to you, same as the other way around.”

She ducked her head, picking up the handwarmer and pressing her fingers to it, trying to seek a last little breath of warmth.

Joe said, “If you do go - ”

From behind her, Dante Ramon said, “Snow?”

“My policy vis a vis your opinion is still in force,” she snapped over her shoulder.

“There’s someone on the phone,” he said. “Ted - Fred - something.”

Her whole chest seized up, and she whipped around. “Fred Alton? From Geophysics at CCU?”

“Yeah. He says - ” Dante swallowed. “That your sonic boom guy is being an asshole again.”

Something rang in her ears. How could she have forgotten Fred? “Transfer the call,” she snapped.

“I can’t - I don’t - I just left it on your desk.”

She bolted past him, racing to her desk and snatching up the handset. “Fred? Tell me exactly what he’s doing.”

Fred sounded taken aback at her ferocity. “Uh - well - Eighteen minor vibrations a minute. Not huge but persistent. It’s different than anything he’s done before. The pattern, well - ”

“Send me the graph,” she ordered. Something pinged on her computer and she opened up the email, and the graph attached to it.

“They’re tiny,” Fred rambled in her ear. “Magnitude’s in between point five and one. But he’s kept it up for over an hour. Could you just go catch him already so we can get back to work?”

She traced her finger over the line on her screen. Three spikes, then flatness. Then three more spikes, farther apart. Then flatness. Three more, as close together as the first set. Then a long stretch of flatness and the pattern repeated again.

Short, short, short. Long, long, long. Short, short, short.

Her voice sounded very far away when she asked Dante, “Does Cisco know Morse code?”

“Everybody knows SOS,” he said, sounding as detached and disbelieving as she felt. “That - is that really my brother doing that? How?”

She said into the phone, “How fast can you pinpoint the location?”

“Well, best I can do right now is tell you it’s about three to four miles away from CCU. I’ve got a couple of calls out to other geophysics departments to help triangulate, but honestly, a petty thief screwing up our instruments is the least of our - ”

The last, fraying thread of her patience snapped. “You listen to me, Fred. While you stand there bitching about your precious data, there’s a human being screaming for help. Now get some other geophysicists on the god. Damned. _Phone_.”

While Fred fell all over himself apologizing, she hung up. “Barry, how far away are the Rogues?”

“Ten miles outside of the city limits.”

“He’s not with them,” she said. Her heart thrashed around as if it wasn’t sure whether to rise or to sink. “And nobody’s standing guard, or they would have noticed him throwing booms.”

“Which means they’re pretty sure he’ll stay where they left him,” Barry said quietly.

Her heart sank. “So he’s somewhere he can’t just boom his way out of. Underground, or Fred’s seismographs wouldn’t’ve picked him up.”

“If he’s buried somewhere, odds are good he’s got a finite amount of air.”

“Which will run out faster with physical exertion. He’s been throwing booms for - ” She checked the graph. “An hour and fourteen minutes.”

“How far away did Fred estimate?” Barry wanted to know.

“Three or four miles,” she muttered. “We need to get the National Geologic Survey on the phone. And somebody bring me a map.”

* * *

Throwing booms, they called it.

What the hell were booms? And how did they shake the earth so hard that a fucking _seismograph_ could feel it?

Dante swallowed, and the dryness in his throat grated like sandpaper. His brother. His baby brother. One of these freaks, one of these metas, one of - one of these.

West stepped up next to him, and Dante turned. “Is this why you care so much about my brother? Because he’s a - ”

West held up his hand and Dante choked. “Son,” West said. “Look around you. Consider your audience. Consider them carefully. Then select the next word you’re gonna say.”

“A meta,” Dante finished.

“Yes,” West said.

“And you want him for this division. You want him on your team.”

“It’s a consideration,” he said, slowly and carefully. “We’re wildly understaffed for the work we do. But - I want you to turn and look at Snow.”

She was bent over a map with the phone pressed to her ear, measuring, tracing a wide circle with her lips pressed together.

“Does that look like a woman who’s thinking about staffing levels?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Then I’ll tell you. The only reason this room isn’t currently full of human popsicles is because that woman has self-control you could bend steel around. The only person I’ve ever seen make her lose her cool - ” he paused and grimaced as if to acknowledge the wild inappropriateness of that idiom “- is your brother.”

While Dante digested that, West called out, “Snow?”

She looked up. “Sir?”

“You’re not going to go talk to the Rogues, then?”

She straightened. Her throat worked. “Do you want me to, sir?”

She would, Dante could see it. She would go, because her lieutenant ordered her. But her hand traced over the map like a caress.

Barry put a hand on her shoulder. “We can handle them.” He glanced at West, who nodded.

“We’ve got plenty of people to throw at the Rogues. You find Ramon.”

“Thank you, sir.” The phone rang, and she grabbed it.

* * *

“I got two more sources,” Fred babbled in her ear. “I’m sending the rough triangulation to you right now.”

The map popped up on her screen. Caitlin squinted at the spot where three circles all met.

“It’s not pinpoint exact, of course. It covers about six acres, but - ”

“It’s fine.” she said. “I can take it from there. Barry? Have you got the coordinates?”

“Yep,” he said and scooped her up.

One whooshing roaring minute later, he set her down again.

“It’s either right at the surface or quite shallow. So we just have to look for a newly … dug …” She trailed off.

The construction site spread out in front of them, acres and acres of newly dug ground with concrete foundations and the skeletal frames rising up here and there, and machines like sleeping monsters dotting the landscape.

She felt the vibration underfoot - _bam bam bam bambambam bam bam bam_ \- and almost crumpled. He was here, he was still fighting. Still booming.

She was torn between wanting him to stop - stop using up his air and his energy - and wanting him to keep going, because it was proof that he was alive.

“You want me to stay?” Barry asked her.

She did. So much. But there were other people who needed him, and they were sworn to serve and protect everyone, so she said, “Go get the Rogues. Rescue that hostage. I can do this.”

She knelt and put her hands on the ground, spreading out her powers in the direction the vibrations came from. Not pulling in heat - no, that would be disastrous, absolutely the wrong thing to do. But seeking it. Looking for heat sources. Body-sized heat sources.

Two suddenly appeared, but behind her, above the ground, and her eyes popped open. The second heat source disappeared as swiftly as it had arrived and she looked around to see Dante Ramon, a little green, a little wobbly. Some people got motion sick when the Flash ran them somewhere.

“What are you doing here?”

“What part of _that’s my brother_ don’t you get?” He pressed a hand to his stomach and swallowed.  "What are you doing just sitting there?“

"I’m using my heat sense to find him.” She closed her eyes, the better to focus. She found mice, little bright blots, and snakes, far cooler ribbons that coiled in the earth. She found things running and skittering, things curled up asleep. She felt her mouth trembling.

She stretched her powers further and felt their limits creak and strain. But she had to accomplish this. She had to get this right or all of her would shut down and freeze over forever.

Her fingers curled into the dirt. Was - was that - ?

She got up and ran for the man-sized blob buried under the ground several hundred yards away. The earth was smoothed over, but on the surface, pebbles and loose grains of soil danced with the booms.

_Bam, bam, bam. Bambambam. Bam, bam, bam._

“He’s six feet down,” she told Dante, hearing her voice crack. “Help me!” She clawed at the earth.

“Back up!” Dante said, climbing into the cab of the backhoe

“What are you doing? That’s not - ”

“Gimme some damn credit! I may not have a meta power but I worked construction and - hah!” The machine rumbled to life. “They left the keys in. And the earth’ll be soft from being moved once already.”

She scooted backward, watching as he carefully levered the scoop into the earth, dumping piles of loose dirt off to one side. Her fingers curled into the ground. Frost crackled around her hands.

The teeth of the scoop scraped against something, and she yelped, “Stop!” even as it dragged the earth away from the concrete wall, with the bricked-in door. She skidded down the slope, dirt flying everywhere. Her shoulder thudded into the wall.

He leapt from the cab of the backhoe, yelling down. “It’s a room for the heater. I recognize this design, I worked on a site - is he in there? Can you tell?”

“Yes!” She pressed her hands against the brick, reveling in the heat source on the other side. “Cisco!”

The booms stopped.

Could he hear her through the brick? Or had he just passed out from exhaustion, from lack of air, from -

_Bam._

She pressed on the brick, which was cured hard and half-melted in patches, as if Mick Rory had hit it with his heat gun. “Is there anything that can break through this?” she asked Dante.

He pushed his mutilated hand through his hair. “There’s got to be a sledgehammer around here somewhere - but that brick looks - ”

“Go get it,” she said, laying her hands on the brick. “I can weaken this. But I’ll need water.”

He didn’t ask, didn’t fight, just went.

She pressed her hands flat, seeking out the water in the tiny pores of the concrete, in the mortar, in the bricks. It was there. It was everywhere.

She pulled. The water inside froze, expanding, pressing out against the material that encased it.

Little scales appeared on the surface of the concrete as flakes broke off. But it was the very topmost layer. A skin. And it was a foot thick.

Dante came back, staggering with a giant orange jug of water, and at her direction splashed water onto the bricks, where she froze it, over and over again.

Splash, freeze. Splash, freeze. The cement was chilly under her hand, and she had to focus her powers with incredible precision. She needed to pull the heat from the walls only, leave the heat there in the body where it belonged, he needed it, he _needed it_ -

The mortar began to crumble in patches. Dante said, “Move,” and swung the sledgehammer. She shielded her face from flying chips of brick, then spilled water over the spot where it had hit and dragged the heat out again. Frost crackled through the cracks, running zigzag up and down, forcing them wider with an almost audible groan.

Again and again, splash-freeze-slam, three times, four times, until they’d dug a shallow hole into the side of the wall. When she laid her hands on the brick for the fifth time, something slammed into it from the other side.

_Bam._

The wall shuddered under her touch, and she went still. “Cisco?”

“Move!” Dante said, pulling the sledge hammer back.

She grabbed him around the waist. “Stop!”

The concrete exploded in a gout of dust and rock, knocking her backward into the soft side of the pit. Dante landed next to her, the sledgehammer burying itself halfway up the handle in the earth.

Afraid of what she would see - what if that boom had been some kind of death spasm? - she peered into the hole. Cold air spilled out, washing over her skin.

He was crumpled against the base of far wall, his head resting back against the concrete. Dust and pebbles coated his hair, his clothes, his skin, turning him grey as death. One eye was black and there was dried blood at the corners of his mouth.

His hand, pressed to his side, flexed ever so slightly, and he groaned.

The tiny sound galvanized her. She scrambled through the hole, brick scraping her hands and arms and stomach. She didn’t care, as long as she could kneel next to him and press her fingers to his wrist to feel his pulse.

Too fast, just a little too fast, but beating. And his chest rose and fell, and that was what counted.

“Cisco?” she said again.

He coughed once and opened his eyes. Caitlin let out the breath she’d been holding in a great gasp.

He blinked up at her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, absurdly close to tears.

Dante crouched by them. “Fuck, it’s cold,” he said, rubbing Cisco’s arms. “Jesus.”

“Ow!” he yelped. “Ow, fuck, shoulder - ”

Dante yanked his hands away. “Sorry!”

He blinked. “Dante?”

“Hey, _mijo._ ”

“You’re - you - okay. Good. Okay.” Cisco’s eyes rolled up, and he slumped in his brother’s arms.

“Cisco? Cisco!”

Caitlin grabbed her phone from her pocket and stabbed three numbers. “I need an ambulance.”

* * *

She put her chin up as she walked down the hospital hallway. She had every right to be here. She was a cop, and a doctor, and she was just visiting someone involved in a current case. Her presence here really was perfectly unexceptionable.

There no reason whatsoever to feel awkward and shy.

She showed her badge to the uniforms at the door, and they nodded, stepping aside. She nodded back. Excellent work, boys. There had been a security detail on Cisco in the hospital all the previous night, too.

The Rogues were in custody, but they’d been in custody before, too. The CCPD wasn’t taking any chances, because Cisco’s testimony would be enough to put them away for a good long time, particularly with the attempted murder charges.

Caitlin wasn’t taking any chances, because …

Well.

She wasn’t, all right.

When she slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, he didn’t react. He had his eyes closed, but a set of white cords running from an MP3 player in his lap to his ears, and the way his fingers and toes bounced to a silent beat, told her he was awake.

She’d thought it was the dirt and the dust, but in the sterile white light of the hospital room, Cisco’s injuries looked more hideous than ever. His left eye was black, just part of a patchwork of mottled bruising all over his face. There were more than a few scrapes and cuts along his jaw and cheekbones. The one that bisected his left eyebrow was held closed with a small butterfly bandage. One arm was in a sling. He’d dislocated his shoulder with that last boom, the one that had broken through solid brick and freed him.

That was just what she could see. She had no doubt, from her quick examination of him at the scene, that there were more injuries she couldn’t see.

But he was here. Alive. Sitting up in his hospital bed, bobbing his head along to his music, not dying by inches in a concrete casket, and so he looked perfect.

When she realized how long she’d been drinking in the sight of him, she bit her lip and sidled toward the end of the bed. For something to do, she picked up the clipboard with his medical records and started flipping through it.

“You’re totally violating my right to privacy, you know.”

She looked up over the clipboard. His eyes were open, and the earbuds lay on his shoulders.

She set the clipboard back into its holder and said, “Then why don’t you tell me what’s wrong with you?”

“Hoo. Well. That’ll take a while for sure. I don’t honestly think that they’ve figured that out. Oh, you mean physically?”

She raised a brow.

“Two broken ribs, three cracked, one dislocated shoulder, one black eye, split lip, multiple contusions, abrasions, and lacerations, plus dehydration and exhaustion. Basically.”

It sounded right. She swallowed as subtly as she could. “Are you in pain?”

“I’ve got extremely good drugs. Like. Extremely. Pink kittens and rainbow unicorns all up in here.” He pointed at his head.

“I’m surprised you’re still upright.”

“They backed off the stuff a few hours ago, so mostly I just feel a little buzzed now.” He pattered his fingers against the sheet. “Soooooo, you here to take my statement or whatever?”

“Actually, I - ” She fidgeted. “I’m not here as a representative of the Central City Police Department. I’m off the clock. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh. Well. I’m okay, considering. Thanks.”

She shrugged, hating herself. Oh, this was awful. They were so awkward with each other, without the Rogues or kidnapped brothers or crime in general between them. She sort of wished someone would attack the hospital just so she would have something to do.

“Hey, uh, grab a chair if you want,” he said. “I’d offer you something, but - ” He looked at an abandoned tray and scrunched up his nose disdainfully.

“No, that’s quite all right,” she said, pulling a chair to his bedside. “I’ve eaten in my fair share of hospital cafeterias. I really don’t need to repeat the experience.”

“Ha. Yeah.”

Silence.

“The Rogues are in custody,” she said suddenly. “In case you were interested.”

“Extremely interested. Super interested. Like, lockdown? Solitary confinement? Is Len throwing a baseball against the wall?”

“Well, I don’t know about the baseball,” she said, puzzled - baseball? “- but the rest of it, yes.”

“Good. Great. Tell me when to testify and I’m there. I’ll put on a tie, even.”

“It might take awhile. Justice runs slowly sometimes.”

“As long as they’re put away for good.”

“You’ll help with that,” she told him. “You’ll be a big part of that.”

He smiled a little and winced as the motion pulled at the cut on his lip. “Well, I wouldn’t’ve if you hadn’t believed me. If you hadn’t found Dante. If you hadn’t gotten him out.”

She looked down at her knees.

“What?” he asked.

“Aren’t you mad at me?”

“Mad at you? For what, saving my life?”

“For not telling you I already had Dante when you asked me two nights ago. Before the bank.”

“Mmmm.” He tipped his hand backward and forward in the air. “A little. But he’s free. Safe. The Rogues are locked up. And, oh yeah, I’m not dead underground. On balance, I’m feeling pretty kindly toward you, Caitlin.”

She shook her head, baffled, and asked what she’d been wondering for long weeks. “Why did you come to me? Why did you decide to tell me what the Rogues had done to get you on their side?”

“You arrested me,” he pointed out. “Seemed like a decent opportunity.”

“‘Make it look good,’” she said. “That’s what you told me at the club, that night, right before you took off. You let me catch you.”

“Mmmm,” he said. “Yeah. But I didn’t have to let you very hard.”

She waved that off. She knew how well they were matched. She knew he’d barely allowed one mistake to happen so she could bring him down. “So you could have let Barry catch you. Or any other officer in Meta Division. Why me?”

“You’re talking like I actually had a plan. I didn’t know you were Killer Frost when I saw you at the club. I just thought you were a pretty girl and I wanted to dance with you.”

“You didn’t? You did?”

He nodded.

“How did you figure it out?” Their dance together was a blur of movement and loud bass in her memory, his warm hands and his bright smile in the dim of the club the only things that were clear.

“Not really sure. Something about the way you moved. It’s not that different, fighting and dancing. And then once I had - the whole deal just hatched in my head.”

She shook her head. “That just brings me back to my original question. Why me? I was your enemy.”

“No. You were the Rogues’ enemy, so already I liked you a lot. And I noticed that whenever we got into it and there was a choice between helping somebody in need or kicking some enemy ass, you always picked the first option. And it didn’t hurt that I liked fighting you best of all, because you were tough and sexy and beautiful and I loved your smile and did I mention I’m a little buzzed right now?”

She bit her lip. “A few times.”

“Okay. Just wanted to clarify that.” It was hard to tell under all the bruises, but he might have been blushing a little.

“So you told me about Dante, knowing I’d try to help.”

“Yep. That’s about the size of it.”

She nibbled on her lip, and decided to say it. “Meta Division has been giving me a lot of funny looks lately. Ever since I started looking for Dante.”

“Because you went to bat for a criminal?”

“No. Because I went to bat for somebody I’d been complaining about ever since the first time we squared off.”

His face fell. “Complaining?”

“You annoyed me. Got under my skin. I couldn’t quit thinking about you. Basically I wasn’t very happy about my attraction to you.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “Complaining like that.”

“Mhm.” She added quickly, “But I didn’t help you just because of that. I made sure everything checked out and I did my due diligence. I work hard at my job, and I take it seriously  - ”

“Yeah, of course, I know - ”

“And I would have done it for anybody.” She wove her fingers together. “But it was a little different, because it was you.”

He looked down at his lap. His eyelashes were pin-straight and very long. His eyes flickered back up to hers and he gave her a little smile. “You know, in spite of being on different sides, I actually think we made a good team.”

“I think we made an excellent team. And you said it yourself - we weren’t really on different sides. It just looked that way.”

They smiled at each other.

“So,” he said. “What happens now?”

“Well. Actually I wanted to talk to you about that, too.” She cleared her throat. “I know you made me a deal. But I want you to know that if you don’t want to work for the CCPD, I won’t - what?”

“You don’t want me at Meta Division?”

“No! I mean, yes. I - ”

“Is it your lieutenant? I saw the way he looked at me at the scene.”

“Don’t worry about Joe.”

“The criminal thing, then? I mean, I did aid and abet a whole bunch of crime.”

“That’s not an issue. We’re recommending an offer of immunity to the DA in exchange for testimony. Besides, the number of metas we’ve arrested and subsequently hired - well, it’s a little silly, honestly.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Cisco, I’m talking about you. What do you want?”

“Me?” he said, as if the thought had never crossed his mind.

She thought again, _Oh, he really needs to learn that he matters, too._ “I should have started off with that. What do you want to do with your life, now that it’s yours again?”

“I - ” He stopped. Frowned.

“You don’t have to make up your mind right now. Give it some thought. Then when you know, if I can help make it happen - I will.”

He nodded, slowly, his brows pulled together. “Okay. Yeah.”

She nodded. “I realize you’ve been through a lot in the past few days, and it’s a big decision, so - ”

“Actually, I do know two things I want right now.”

“What’s that?”

“Lime jello,” he said definitively.

“Jello?”

“ _Lime_ jello. It is the awesomest. You think you can flash that badge around a little, hook me up?”

“I’ll see what I can do. And what else? You said there were two things.”

He reached out with his good hand and took hers, playing with her fingers. “I wanna give a proper thank-you to the person who saved my life.”

“How are you going to do that?”

He tugged her hand. “Well, you’ve got to come closer.”

“Do I?”

“Yep.” He let go of her hand and lifted his to her cheek, searching her eyes. Whatever he saw there made him smile. “C'mere,” he whispered, and she leaned toward him until their lips met.

His fingers were gentle in her hair, and his lips were sweet on hers. She told herself she should be gentle because of his bruises and the newness of it all. But she braced her hand on the railing of the hospital bed and leaned into the kiss, drinking him in.

Someone cleared their throat.

They pulled apart. Caitlin hoped she wasn’t blushing, but pretty sure she was.

Dante stood in the doorway, eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, holding a shallow dish of something-or-other. “You guys done?”

“Great timing,” Cisco grumbled, but with a proud quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Whaddya want?”

“Just bringing your ungrateful ass some Jello. You’re welcome.”

“Jello?”

“Lime.” Dante set it down on his tray. “I, uh, I’m maybe not the best brother all the time, but I’ve been doing it long enough, I know some things by now.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

By the way Dante loitered, shifting from foot to foot, Caitlin could tell he wanted to talk to his brother, so she got up. “I should get to the station. I’m on duty soon.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah.”

As she passed Dante, he muttered, “Thanks,” without looking at her.

“You’re welcome,” she murmured back.

“Hey, Caitlin?” Cisco called out.

She turned in the doorway.

“You comin’ back? Tonight maybe?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

“Okay.” He smiled at her like the sun coming out. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

* * *

_Six Weeks Later_

Caitlin paced around the edge of the dance floor, sipping lukewarm water from a paper cup. She resisted the urge to check her phone.

“Well, hello, Officer. Can I help you?”

At the voice just behind her, a smile tugged the corners of her mouth. She suppressed it. “Maybe,” she said over her shoulder. “I got a tip that a desperate criminal was going to be here tonight.”

“Desperate criminal, huh? Sounds serious.”

“It’s very serious.”

“Well, can you describe him?”

She turned. “Hmmmm. Well. He’s about your height - about your build - and about your coloring.”

“He sounds pretty sexy to me.”

“Oh, he is, but I have to bring him in anyway.”

Cisco grinned at her. “Well, I’d love to help you out, but no criminals here. Just a hard-working employee of the CCPD, looking for his awesome girlfriend.”

“Darn,” she said, putting her arms around his neck. His hands settled warm on her hips. “Then I guess I’ll just have to call off the search and dance with my amazing boyfriend instead.”

He laughed outright and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Sorry I’m late. Took longer to refit the cell than I’d calculated.”

He wasn’t that late, really. But she wrinkled her nose at him anyway. “What happened to all your claims of being able to build to spec with duct tape and an Allen wrench?”

He made a sheepish face. “I ran out of duct tape.”

She laughed out loud, and he laughed with her. “Man, I love it when you smile.”

“I know,” she said. She’d done a lot of smiling in the past six weeks.

He nodded at the dance floor just over her shoulder. “So, you ready to shake your booty?” 

The doctors had given his ribs the go-ahead just the other day, and he’d immediately proclaimed that he was taking her out dancing. She had some other strenuous physical activity planned for afterwards. But for right now, booty shaking sounded perfect. 

She slid her hands over his shoulders, down his arms, until they covered his hands on her hips. She curled her fingers around his, walking backwards and tugging him after her. “So ready.”

FINIS


End file.
